Questions loom over why the Lehigh Valley Phantoms mascot is a beaver named 'Dax'

View full sizeDax makes animal noises over the microphone as dignitaries awkwardly stand behind him at a news conference last month to announce the Lehigh Valley Phantoms new hockey arena will be named the PPL Center. Express-Times Photo | STEPHEN FLOOD

This goes against my desire to champion minor-league hockey in the Lehigh Valley and my best effort to give the illusion that I’m a mature adult, but someone has to say it.

With about the same amount of gusto as Beavis and Butt-Head, we joked about signs referencing beaver. The joke got old sometime before winter break my junior year when someone gave us a much-needed history lesson on James A. Beaver, the former governor of Pennsylvania and president of Penn State’s board of trustees. It suddenly all made sense.

What doesn’t make sense is the beaver that’s infiltrating the Lehigh Valley. The hockey arena under construction in Allentown will start hosting the Lehigh Valley Phantoms minor league team in 2014. The beaver is the team’s mascot. His name is Dax.

According to the website for the Adirondack Phantoms, the Philadelphia Flyers affiliate that will be moving to the Lehigh Valley, there’s some sob story about Dax being lonely, fat and lazy while living in the mountains. He apparently meets Phlex, the former Phantoms mascot, and learns how to get in shape. Phlex then vanishes, leaving Dax to carry on a message of goodwill and to don some sort of magical cape. By the way, the sequence of events I just laid out is by no means taken verbatim from the website.

A phantom is elusive and mystical. These traits provide a lot of wiggle room on the costume front.

Stick some guy in black robes, perhaps with a thunderbolt emblazoned on his ass. Give him a huge wig with wavy, silver hair. He also should carry a sword or some other sharp object to wave around.

Get him to strap on some ice skates. Fire up the smoke machine and send him out there to do lightning-fast laps around the rink during intermission. He can throw miniature, plush toys of himself at the kids and shout gibberish about death and destruction before disappearing back into the smoke.

Now that’s a mascot.

What the heck is the beaver going to do during intermission? Are we going to be treated to 20 minutes of watching Dax chew on wood?

With all due respect to the late Gov. Beaver, the animal that goes by his surname is hardly elusive or mystical. As a matter of fact, he’s kind of lame.

And for those who think a phantom is too scary for kids, I’d argue that grown men occasionally beating each other to the point of spilling blood on a large slab of ice could be just as scary.

It also can be just as fun.

I’m looking forward to seeing our new team in action. As for Dax, I’ve always preferred spending intermission in the beer or nachos line. I guess I’ll have no good reason to change the habit, but hopefully the kids will at least enjoy his brand of entertainment, whatever that may be.